Interrailing - Day 3: Karlsruhe

~ Wednesday 12th August

Once again, we began this day with more coffee. This time, we tried a blend fermented with berries, which smelled a bit like the berries you get in Special K.

We had big plans today, the first of which was visiting the local Epplesee – an artificial lake made from the remnants of a quarry. To save time, most of us went to a local bakery to get some packed lunch items. We then hopped on a short tram ride (about 30 minutes total) to the lake, which was technically outside of Karlsruhe.

The lake was very pretty, and had a small sandy beach, and a bit of shade from some trees. Most interestingly, the quarry equipment was still there in the distance – perhaps even still in use?

We swam for a bit – the water was cold, but it was hot enough that it became pleasant after you got used to it. It also meant that you'd naturally dry off in about 5 minutes after getting out. The lake water was incredibly clear, and had large schools of small translucent fish swimming around, occasionally interrupted by a predatory slightly larger fish. Eventually it got so hot that we had to leave though; besides, we had plenty more to do!

We returned at about 3pm and rested for a bit. We then briefly visited the local science and art museum – unfortunately we couldn't stay for too long, but what we did get to see in about an hour was very cool! One particular highlight was a pneumatic tube that went around the whole perimeter of the area, letting you send little paper messages to each other.

We had to hurry off because we had made plans to meet up and climb to the top of Karlsruhe's nearest "mountain" (a ~500m hill) to view the solar eclipse! After a short tram ride and horrendous climb of seemingly endless steps, we felt like we'd earned the wonderful view we had of the whole city! The sun was beating down on us but slowly but surely was covered almost entirely by the moon. We had eclipse glasses which presented a great view, but to be honest the effect was fairly underwhelming otherwise. It mostly felt like sunset started a bit early. Watching the sun set over the view of the city, with the foothills of the Alps in the distance (roughly in the direction of Strasbourg) was a really beautiful sight.

Once it started to get dark, we headed to a local pub called the Oxford. This place was actually really nice, but had some strange pseudo-British decoration on the walls – despite not really being an "English pub" in any other way. We got some pretty good burgers and currywurst, along with some local drinks of radler (beer and lemonade, aka shandy) and Campus Ale (beer and apple juice).

Finally, we walked home, briefly checking out the local red light district on the way (which had a bunch of women standing in the doorways, causing a slightly awkward situation of whether it was more polite to nod and smile or look away), providing a relaxing but sobering end of the day.